Thursday, December 31, 2015

At this point, I have figured out which challenges I'm going to have an easy time completing, and which challenges are going to make me snarl. Have you figured it out?

- 30 Day Flexibility Challenge
-- I think my mind is also getting a workout with this challenge, trying to figure out all these moves. Today, however, they are pretty much yoga moves that I like, so no problem...except my favorite: child's pose. Can't get there anymore as my knee won't bend like that. *cries*

- 30 Day Journey to Splits
-- Am I turning a corner? Are my ligaments forgiving me? Maybe...but Snap, Crackle and Pop aren't just for breakfast anymore. They are accompanying me on my journey to the splits.

- 30 Day Burpee Challenge
-- I think these are my jam! Boom-chucka-lucka-lucka! I'm going to have to put Nilla in the kennel for these, though, because dog drool and burpees don't mix. Gah-ROSS!

- 30 Day Vocabulary Challenge
-- I think this one is hitting home. reticulate: resembling a net or network. It brings to mind reticulated, as in reticulated pythons, as in those things that someone had as a pet and then just let them loose in Florida and now they're wreaking havoc down here. *deep breath*

- 30 Day Cleaning Challenge
-- This is a weird order of things to me. Scrub the refrigerator before you go through and find expired food? No. I've taken a stand and re-ordered this one. Today was the 'throw out' day, and tomorrow will be the scrub and organize day.

- 30 Day Wall Sit Challenge
-- Forty seconds is rilly, rilly hard. My knees started knocking at 36 and wouldn't stop. Horrid. Is it cheating to break these seconds into two, four or eight different sessions?

- 30 Day Plank Challenge
-- Thirty seconds. I'm bored. What should I think about during this time? Resolutions? Okay. First one? Build a house. 28 seconds left...

- 30 Day Blog Challenge
-- I think I've set a record for myself. Is this helping anybody? If it is, great. If not, it's at least helping me.

Is everyone ready to make resolutions? I've seen a trend lately to avoid it all. I try to make changes throughout the year, so the New Year event just makes it an official day for lining up at the starting line. I wish you luck if you are making changes!

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

It's Bacon Day. I celebrated accordingly with the above snack. Did you celebrate in any way? Maybe next Bacon Day, I can be a little more prepared with a bacon sculpture or something. Perhaps I could challenge myself with a bacon taco shell or a bacon house. Suggestions?

The day was full of non-events, such as cutting all my nails super-short because one of them tore a quarter of an inch past the quick. Another? Outside Christmas lights and decorations taken down and stuffed into our Texas basement (aka the garage). Very exciting.

- 30 Day Flexibility Challenge
-- I have no idea what a wide runners stretch might be, so I posed like a sumo wrestler for 20 seconds. It seems legit.

- 30 Day Journey to Splits
-- This journey is making me walk funny. Obviously, these muscles need stretching more than once every couple of years, and they are giving me the what-for! I used to be the most flexible person in the room and today, I look back on those days fondly. I'll get there again!

- 30 Day Burpee Challenge
-- I've skipped rest day and done five anyway. I did them without shoes and I felt five pounds lighter!

- 30 Day Vocabulary Challenge
-- Word. wormhole (I'm going with the less-boring, non-literal definition): a hypothetical structure of space-time envisioned as a long thin tunnel connecting points that are separated in space and time.

- 30 Day Back Challenge
-- Okay, those renegade rows are getting challenging. I might have to break them up over, say, a couple of hours.

- 30 Day Cleaning Challenge
-- Wiping down the pantry is a nice way of saying pull everything out, reorganize and repaint. It looks so innocent there on that list, doesn't it? I'm all about organization. Keeping things organized is another matter altogether, since I'm not the only one accessing it. By the way, we have a lot of peanut butter.

- 30 Day Plank Challenge
-- I have abandoned the elbow plank and am full-on straight-arming it. I closed my eyes during this plank and pictured myself in a hammock. This form of distraction didn't work.

- 30 Day Butt Lift Challenge
-- Years ago, my sis L saw me after I had taken a two-month class at the gym and that class had lots of squats in it. She said I had pow-booty...so that's what I'm going for. I'll continue the challenge after 30 days for maximum effect.

- 30 Day Mom Challenge
-- The hugging was a challenge since one of us is sneezing. It happened, though, and we'll see if the other of us is sneezing in a few days... It's allergies, as the saying goes.

- 30 Day Blog Challenge
-- Yay! Again! The blog update allows me to take a break between challenges. Did you know it takes a whole hour to write a few sentences? Believe it.

Yes, these things are getting harder. I expected it, and expect more of it on down the line. I am so looking forward to the day 30 report card so I can reward myself with a router or a drill press. I'm taking suggestions.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Not gonna lie. I'm sore. Most of my aches and pains are from the stretching, I assume, so I will be extra warmed-up when I attempt those. Also, I weighed myself this morning and thought I'd been body-snatched last night as the scale indicated I was less than 100 pounds. It was just sitting wonky on the tile. *sad trombone*

- 30 Day Flexibility Challenge
-- All yoga moves that make me hold my breath. A whole minute and a half of yoga and I'm a mouth-breather. Have to work on that, I guess, if I am to be accepted in genteel society.

- 30 Day Journey to Splits
-- All this kneeling on the knees stuff is rude. I don't know why we even started that. They are one of the least-padded parts of our anatomy and here we are, putting weight on them. I have knee pads. I'm gonna use 'em, y'all. Ugh! I'm so out of sorts, my accent is piping up! Also, stretch number five is the devil.

- 30 Day Burpee Challenge
-- The five burpees weren't so bad today. I was interrupted on the first one by a happy dog, so I laughed my way through them. Distraction seems to work. Hmmmm...

- 30 Day Vocabulary Challenge
-- Here again, and this one is easy! petulant: insolent or rude in speech or behavior. Hey, you guys! What is that fine line between being petulant and being heard? Is it the foot-stomping? The smashing of innocent glassware? The calling out of one's mother? This will be an ongoing study.

- 30 Day Cleaning Challenge
-- Cleaning the inside of a dishwasher is disgusting. We went all in (yes, I got help from D), unscrewing stuff and dispatching with the foodball we found inside. Everyone should do this, but if you are prone to gagging, have a trashcan nearby. I predict a dishwasher that does a better job in the future.

- 30 Day Wall Sit Challenge
-- Um, twenty seconds was cake today. However, my feet are sliding on the tile floor. I'm going to have to work this out before I have to sit there for half an hour.

- 30 Day Plank Challenge
-- The plank yesterday seemed harder, with what I assumed was an easier form (on elbows). Today I was on hands and toes and breezed through. More research...

- 30 Day Mom Challenge
-- Go the whole day without yelling, which is hard since the invention of headphones. And closed doors. And music. I'm gonna leave the heavy-voice-lifting to D. Also, changed our activity plan to a Home Depot class, which should be fun!

- 30 Day Blog Challenge
-- Here I am again! This is my accountability. Blog about what makes you better! I can do that. Harder for me? Blogging about my weaknesses, namely cookies and bread (especially those everything bagels, toasted, with butter? Mmmmama!).

I'm preparing for a great new year, namely because I'll be taking a family trip to a dude ranch, building a house, getting back on the workout train and *sob* purging my books. In purging my books, I have plans to donate locally and, yes, you heard it here, give some away to those who take the time to read my blog. Most of those will be cookbooks. Hardly any of those will be about healthy food. Hee hee!

Monday, December 28, 2015

As promised, I'm updating you on my overload of 30 Day challenges. Today was meh. I know it's an easy set of tasks as the authors do not want people to quit on day one. Meh because I have figured out that knee issues are no reason to just stop everything and whine. Noah Galloway would chastise me greatly! Below are my comments on the activities of the day...and I got straight A's!

- 30 Day Burpee Challenge
-- I only did five, and I want to throw up. It's hot here, so I'm blaming the heat, for sure.

- 30 Day Vocabulary Challenge
-- I chose this one, so the word today is kinesics: a systematic study of the relationship between nonlinguistic body motions (such as blushes, shrugs, or eye movement) and communication. Someone should study the body motions of out of shape people with the words that usually come out of their mouths when people ask how they're doing: "Oh, this is fun!" *puke, eye roll, faint*

Sunday, December 27, 2015

I am a list maker. I'm not sure if I've revealed that fact about myself, but it's true. I like to make a list and cross things off, and the more things I cross off, the more accomplished I feel. I could very well go outside to get the mail, see trash in the neighbors yard, pick it up, then add 'good deed' to my list, just to cross it off.

Over the past few years, I have noticed a cornucopia of 30 Day Challenges all over Pinterest, Facebook and, let's face it, blogs...yes, hello. The subject line alone means what's about to happen shouldn't come as a surprise.

I'm a Libra, and if you know anything about them, you know the stereotype is that we have a hard time making decisions. We keep weighing the pros and cons of each possible choice until we find ourselves in analysis paralysis. I hope insurance covers that.

Moving on..

I'm just going to give in. I'm doing lots of challenges at once. Who's with me?

Here's a list of what I'll be doing for the next 30 days...starting tomorrow:

If I survive each day, I'll report back with both the challenge and my experience with it. If you know me, you know I have a problem with one of my knees, so if the challenge calls for 50 squats and I only do 2 before my kneecap slides off, pat me on the back anyway. Mkay?

Oh! And since I'll be reporting back daily, I'll add this one:

- 30 Day Blog Challenge

I anticipate blogging more anyway next year, since we hope to begin building the house. I'll be annoying the builder and tradespeople with visits and calls for 'smile!' on a regular basis, and will keep you apprised of the progress. Exciting!

Until then, I'm going to be challenged. I'm challenging. How should I say that? Either of those ways sounds as though I'm quite a pill.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Late again, and I have such a good excuse: a cold. When I get a cold, I get a cough, and if I have a cough and laugh, well, the result is too much coughing. See, when you laugh at your own hilarity every other minute, wellllll.... You can see why I would avoid writing.

This one is going to HURT, people. This is you, coming face-to-face with the reality of your intake. Self-denial is real, and I think all of us, at one time or another, have wondered how in the heck we were gaining weight without giving a thought to those liquid calories or 'healthy' protein bars.

I've seen some protein bars with calories in the 300 range, and if you are limited to 1200 calories a day, that's a quarter of your total calories for the day. For me, I'm just not satisfied for long after one of those. I snarf it down, and then I'm, like...NEXT!

Basically, in order for this change to work, you have to document everything. Don't omit the birthday cake you ate at work. It counts. Even if you only ate half a tiny cupcake, write it down. With this, you are being accountable to YOU. Why lie to yourself? It's not healthy.

So, there will be more to it than just keeping track of food and drink. Also included will be your appetite and your physical and emotional status.

Food and drink: include EVERYTHING. Write these down or use an app. I use MyFitnessPal for this. They have portion sizes and calorie counts for lots of things, but you might have to add some of your more obscure snacks. Be sure to accurately assign portion size. If you drink an entire 20 ounce soda, you'll have to be faced with the reality of having had 2.5 servings! If it's a full-sugar soda, that's almost 400 calories. *sad trombone*

Appetite: This is you evaluating, on a scale from 0 to 5, your appetite. If you are extremely hunger, put a 0 down. If you are extremely full, put a 5 down. Brett recommends to strive for staying within the 1-4 range. I have been a 0 before and that's when I get a bag of fast 'whatever' because I'm too starved to go home and make something healthy. I've been a 5 before, too, and that's just pure misery. Remember when eating raw cookie dough was a thing? I ate some after hiking for two weeks once and still, to this day, won't eat raw cookie dough. It was a hard lesson in self-control and stomach shrinkage.

Physical and Emotional Status: This one might be tough, for me, at least. Yes, yes, sometimes I eat when I'm bored, but there are times when I eat because I smelled bacon. It's my trigger. Also, cinnamon rolls. There's no need for a full sentence there. Anywho, this is the how, why, what and when of food. It's also the before, during and after of consumption. Keep track of all of this information and you might find that you eat EVERY time you smell bacon or EVERY time you watch Doctor Who. You might find a food allergy. You might find you have no control at parties. If you bought the book, there's a Food Journal Template in the back.

Included in the book are some False Hunger Triggers (FHT). These include:
- Lack of Nutrient Balance (drop in blood sugar?)
- Emotional Hunger (bored, fearful, stressed, lonely)
- Hunger Due to Sleepiness
- Hunger Due to Thirst
Keeping this journal may help you identify times when FHTs hit and you can deal with them before attacking a bag of marshmallows.

Be sure to journal all day long so you don't forget about those little snacks. I'll try to report back with my journal entries. It might not be pretty. My saving grace? No cookies in the house. Yay!

Friday, January 23, 2015

How refreshing is a mini-vacation? To take a week and just chill? I won't say that's what happened to that missing week, because that was no vacation! School wasn't in session for two regular school days, so that translated into one thing: this girl got lazy. Yep. On the very week I was supposed to keep off the couch, I planted myself there and decided not to be a hypocrite. It was my week to whine and complain, because I had things to complain about...namely a headache that almost rivaled the infamous DC headache of 2011* (?! I'm very bad with dates) and local traffic. Oh, and how cold it was. I think it was 53 degrees one morning! Imagine this!

So, now that I'm back to semi-normal, which is my normal, I can continue with small changes. Hooray!

Just as the title says, this is the week to start staying off the couch. I dig couches, because if I'm a bit chilly (usual occurrence), I can snuggle under a blanket and encounter bliss. Bliss comes in many forms, such as comfortable reading, comfortable TV watching and, most beloved, comfortable nap-taking. I swear. Me and naps? We're best friends.

BUT! Since I'm obviously working on getting more sleep during actual sleeping hours, I probably won't be best friends with naps much longer...and that will help me stay off the couch.

Brett, in her book, gives a road-map for success that includes walking/taking the stairs as often as possible, taking an active lunch, taking breaks often if you sit at work and activating your TV watching (by doing all kinds of things instead of only sitting). Have you seen those exercise plans you do based on what happens during a TV show? Perhaps something like this:

At Penny’s door: (knock, knock, knock) Penny. (knock, knock, knock) Penny. (knock, knock, knock) Penny.
Any nerds around to verify the authenticity of this scene? I thought so. Anyway, if this should happen as you watch TV, you would do a squat for each knock and a push-up for each utterance of the name Penny. Can you imagine how buff you'd be after a Big Bang Theory marathon? As it stands, there are tons of TV show workouts available (just do a search for your favorite show(s) and workout or challenge), and how cool is this: it's a mind-workout, too, since you have to be on your game to recognize an exercise trigger! An added bonus? You aren't just mindlessly stuffing your face with snacks as you sit there. Ain't nobody got time for that!

Other helpful bits of advice are to do your own cleaning and chores, stand more often, become more active during the week and get away from the technology for a while. As extra credit, Brett advises you to get a pedometer, or these days, a fitbit, a fitness app, or something similar that counts your steps, and try to take 10,000 steps a day. Apply these changes liberally to your life and you'll probably have no problem sleeping at night. Even though I took a week off from blogging, I actually started walking with a group of friends every day. When I walk 3-4 miles with them and a mile each time I walk the dog, getting to 10,000 steps is easier than plopping on a couch.

Okay, I lied. I'm a liar. It's not that easy, but since sitting down for hours on end is a thing of the past, it will become easy.

Best of Luck!
Heather

* This headache made the words in my book do waves and it didn't hit full force until AFTER we'd paid for parking, so I'm mad at that headache. Rilly, rilly mad.

Friday, January 16, 2015

I'm a fan of Hayneedle. As I'm about to build a brand-spanking-new house, I slobber on my keyboard as I design awesome interiors with Hayneedle stuff. Sometimes Hayneedle is even more awesome and they give stuff away. This one is appropriate for the month of January AND this blog, because it's all about...Small Changes. Isn't that amazing? The coinkydink is pretty surreal.

Anyhoot, this ends tonight, right before midnight CST, so get on this, quickly. Below is the link and a list of bundles from which you can choose, should you be so lucky! You're welcome.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

How did everybody do with getting enough water? Did you do anything not mentioned that helped you? Well, keep up the good work! Now, it's time to add the second small change.

This is going to be hard for me. Week Two is all about getting seven to eight hours of sleep every night. I fully admit that this change is not going to be small for me. I have tried getting eight hours, and sometimes, it just doesn't happen. That's why...

I LOVE NAPS!

There are times when I have hit the sack at 9 p.m. and found myself wide awake at 4 a.m. Yes, that's seven hours, and I probably should have mathed a little better, but I thought for sure I could get an extra hour and be bubbly and full of energy the next day. No dice. I was a slug. So, recently, my experiments include getting four hours here, two hours there, a couple of half-hour accidental snoozes and a few 'zone-outs' in the middle of the frozen section of the grocery store.

These accidental naps are the worst! My husband has prodded me after he found me sideways on the couch, or folded forward over my butterfly legs. I've felt the Sahara on my tongue from in-the-chair, open-mouthed siestas. Once or twice (yes, once or twice), I was alarmed by a snort! It was me.

1. Make where you sleep good for sleeping. Lighting, sound, what you wear, your sheets, the temperature and the humidity all need to be considered.

2. Experiment with a sleep schedule. If you can't sleep more than four hours at a time, figure out something that works for you. We're all different, so we'll all have different needs. Do this gradually.

3. Don't exercise too close to bedtime. You need cool-off and wind-down time before hitting the hay.

4. Create a routine before bed. Make it something you enjoy doing that you know relaxes you. This should not include looking at a computer, phone or electronic game, reading a can't-put-it-down book or drinking Jolt (although those with ADHD might be able to do the last thing and still conk out easily).

7. Try to drop the smoking. This was news to me: The body starts going into nicotine withdrawal in three to four hours, so smokers tend to wake up after three to four hours. Wow!

8. Finish eating two hours before bedtime. It's not pleasant to awake in the middle of the night and deal with heartburn! I can attest, my friends. I thought I was a dragon once.

9. Stop drinking two or three hours before bed. I hate having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The bright lights assaulting my eyeballs, the cold floor making me whine, the foot-shuffling...it's all stuff that makes me feel like I'm three years old.

Okay, that's it. Report back, and yes, this was not posted on Friday. I fell asleep. :-)

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Two birds with one stone is what I'm going to accomplish with this challenge. One is to actually complete (and incorporate) the challenges, and the other is to blog about it. That's a realistic goal, right? Please say yes.

I found a book a couple of years ago and thought it was great. So, I read it and smiled and put it aside. I'm awesome like that. The book is called 52 Small Changes by Brett Blumenthal. You make one change per week for a year and, at the end, you will at least be on the path to being more healthy and more happy (could I actually BE more happy?!). Although I probably already practice many of the changes in my life at present, I feel as though challenging myself to take note of 'the why' of each for a week is a good thing. Brett has been kind enough to make this journey a little more interesting. Check it out: http://www.sheerbalance.com/52-small-changes-assessment/ I highly recommend taking the assessment...and be honest with yourself. You don't have to share with anyone. Also, the tools and forms from the book are provided there. Pure awesome.

If you want to get the book, I can make that easy for you! As of today (Jan. 3, 2015), the Kindle version of this book is only $3.99 on Amazon. If you like paper, that's only $7.99.

My goal in blogging about this is to present the challenge on Friday so that you, if partaking in the challenge, have the weekend to come to terms with it. For example, one challenge is to make breakfast and prepare lunches at home six days a week, and to cook dinner at home at least five days a week. You must have 'stuff' for that to happen, thus the heads-up. See how utterly amazing I am to think of these things?

Just in case you are interested in knowing the areas of change, they are as follows:
Diet and Nutrition
Fitness and Prevention
Mental Well-Being
Green Living

As it is, I'll need all the mental well-being I can get, as we'll probably be building a house at some point this year (and, seeing as how it's taken half a year to get the deed to our land, perhaps next year, as well).

There is such a thing as too much water, so don't think you'll get extra credit for going too far over your goal. You do, however, need to take into consideration personal factors, such as whether or not you exercise, drink alcohol, travel, live in an arid area, are breast-feeding or are pregnant. If you answer yes to any of those, up your intake.

Brett gives great hints as to how to reach your water goal every day, including spacing it out, drinking before you eat and setting reminders.

I've seen people wear eight or more bracelets on one arm, then drink a glass of water and move a bracelet to the other arm.

I've seen people mark their water bottles with times they should begin drinking, then continue the next hour until empty, then refill and begin again in the afternoon.

If you are having trouble, check the internet for a way that might make it easier for you!

Now, I realize it isn't Friday, but since you probably have some water around your living quarters, hardly any prep is required, but from here on out...Friday!